Entertainment

China plans orbiting space station completion, many launches in 2022

China has recommitted itself to completing its orbiting space station by the end of the year and says it is planning more than 40 launches for 2022, putting it roughly level with the United States.

Launches would include those of two Shenzhou crewed missions, two Tianzhou cargo spacecraft and the station’s additional two modules, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday, citing a recent announcement by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation known as CASC.

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Named Mengtian and Wentian, the science modules will join the Tianhe core module that is currently home to a three-person crew.

The launch schedule shows how China’s traditionally cautious program is increasing the cadence of its missions as it seeks to take a leading role in space exploration.

The US expects around the same number of launches this year, after the pace slowed in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply chains for crucial items such as computer chips were disrupted and liquid oxygen used as rocket fuel had to be diverted to hospitals to save patients.

Among the most anticipated is the launch expected around March of the Space Launch System — a 1,010-meter- (332-foot-) tall rocket slated for future lunar missions.

China’s military-run space program was barred from the International Space Station, mainly due to US objections.

Working largely on its own, China has pushed ahead with its Tiangong space station program, building and then abandoning two experimental stations before embarking on the latest iteration.

The current six-month mission Shenzhou-13 by the crew aboard Tianhe is China’s longest since it first put a human in space in 2003, becoming only the third country to do so after Russia and the US.

The crew has conducted a pair of spacewalks — including the first by a Chinese female astronaut — and carried out tests alongside the station’s robotic service arm, which on Thursday successfully undocked then redocked the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft for the first time.

The three are the second crew on the permanent station, which upon completion will weigh about 66 tons, about a quarter the size of the ISS, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs around 450 tons.

China has also chalked up success with un-crewed missions, and its lunar exploration program generated media buzz last year when its Yutu 2 rover sent back pictures of what was described by some as a “mystery hut” but was most likely only a rock of some sort.

The rover is the first to be placed on the little-explored far side of the moon.

China’s Chang’e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s in December 2000 and another Chinese rover is searching for evidence of life on Mars.

The program has also drawn controversy. In October, China’s Foreign Ministry brushed off a report that China had tested a hypersonic missile two months earlier, saying it had merely tested whether a new spacecraft could be reused.

China is also reportedly developing a highly secretive space plane.

Entertainment

Gwyneth Paltrow gets vindication at ski collision trial

Gwyneth Paltrow wasn’t to blame for a 2016 collision with a retired optometrist on a beginner run at a posh Utah ski resort during a family vacation, a jury decided Thursday following a live-streamed trial that became a pop culture fixation.

A jury awarded Paltrow $1 — a symbolic amount she asked for in order to show it wasn’t about money — and delivered her the vindication she sought when she opted to take it to trial rather than settle out of court.

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“I felt that acquiescing to a false claim compromised my integrity,” Paltrow said in a statement released by her representatives that she also posted as an Instagram story for her 8.3 million followers. She also thanked the judge and jury for their work.

As Paltrow left court she touched Terry Sanderson’s shoulder and told him, “I wish you well,” he told reporters outside court. He responded, “Thank you dear.”

Paltrow’s attorney, Steve Owens, added in a statement he read outside court that “Gwyneth has a history of advocating for what she believes in – this situation was no different and she will continue to stand up for what is right.”

Paltrow, an actor who in recent years has refashioned herself into a celebrity wellness entrepreneur, looked to her attorneys with a pursed lips smile when the judge read the eight-member jury’s verdict in the Park City courtroom. She sat intently through two weeks of testimony in what became the biggest celebrity court case since actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard faced off last year.

After the verdict was read, the judge polled the jury, which was unanimous on the decision. In civil court in Utah, only three-fourths of jurors need to agree on a verdict. The attorney fees Paltrow asked for in her countersuit were not included in the jury’s verdict, leaving the bulk of the final award for the Park City judge to decide.

Addressing reporters after the verdict, Sanderson questioned whether the lawsuit was worth it and said he believed that people tend to naturally trust celebrities like Paltrow.

“You get some assumed credibility from being a famous person,” Sanderson said. “Really, who wants to take on a celebrity?”

The dismissal concludes two weeks of courtroom proceedings that hinged largely on reputation rather than the monetary damages at stake in the case. Paltrow’s attorneys described the complaint against her as “utter B.S.” and painted the Goop founder-CEO as uniquely vulnerable to unfair, frivolous lawsuits due to her celebrity.

Paltrow took the witness stand during the trial to insist that the collision wasn’t her fault, and to describe how she was stunned when she felt “a body pressing against me and a very strange grunting noise.”

Throughout the trial, the word “uphill” became synonymous with “guilty,” as attorneys focused on a largely unknown skiing code of conduct that stipulates that the skier who is downhill or ahead on the slope has the right of way.

Worldwide audiences followed the celebrity trial as if it were episodic television. Viewers scrutinized both Paltrow and Sanderson’s motives while attorneys directed questions to witnesses that often had less to do with the collision and more to do with their client’s reputations.

The trial took place in Park City, a resort town known for hosting the annual Sundance Film Festival, where early in her career Paltrow would appear for the premieres of her movies including 1998’s “Sliding Doors,” at a time when she was known primarily as an actor, not a lifestyle influencer. Paltrow is also known for her roles in “Shakespeare in Love” and the “Iron Man” movies.

The jury’s decision marks a painful court defeat for Sanderson, the man who sued Paltrow for more than $300,000 over injuries he sustained when they crashed on the ski slope at Deer Valley Resort.

“He never returned home that night as the same man. Terry has tried to get off that mountain but he’s really still there,” attorney Robert Sykes said during closing arguments.

Both parties blamed the other for the collision. Sanderson, 76, broke four ribs and sustained a concussion after the two tumbled down the slope, with Paltrow landing on top of him.

He filed an amended complaint after an earlier $3.1 million lawsuit was dismissed. In response, Paltrow countersued for $1 and attorney fees, a symbolic action that mirrors Taylor Swift’s response to a radio host’s defamation lawsuit. Swift was awarded $1 in 2017.

Entertainment

Sony set to sell fewer PSVR2 headset headsets as Metaverse push slows down

Sony Group Corp. is projected to sell fewer than 300,000 PlayStation VR2 headsets in its first weeks on the market, a slow start for company efforts to take a leading role in development of the metaverse.

The Tokyo-based console maker is likely to sell about 270,000 units of the PSVR2 between its February 22 release and the end of March, according to estimates from the research firm IDC. Sony had a lofty goal of making about 2 million units for the PSVR2’s launch window, Bloomberg News reported last year.

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The headset is a foundational piece of Sony’s strategy to build a metaverse where people can do far more than play video games. But the conceptual 3D virtual environments that prompted Mark Zuckerberg to rename his company Meta Platforms Inc. have yet to repay the industry’s heavy investments in hardware and software. Sony president and Chief Executive Officer Kenichiro Yoshida made the metaverse a growth tentpole for Sony, much like Meta has done, and the company’s in-house game studios have been developing VR-tailored games to help the new headset get off to a fast start that hasn’t materialized.

“Consumers around the world are facing rising costs of living, rising interest rates and rising layoffs,” said IDC’s Francisco Jeron-imo, vice president of data and analytics. “VR headsets are not top of mind for most consumers under the current economic cli-mate, “ Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said at a recent Morgan Stanley conference that Sony is reasonably confident about surpassing the roughly 5 million sales of the original PlayStation VR goggles over the course of the PSVR2’s lifetime on the market.

Matching the prior device’s performance would not make the current one a success, given Meta’s more accessible and
affordable Quest has surpassed 20 million sales to date, according to a report this month.

A Sony spokesperson declined to comment.

The PSVR2 requires a PlayStation 5 console to play with and costs $549, a price that’s only grown more onerous as economic conditions have worsened, Jeronimo said. Meta has announced a price cut on its Quest 2 that will also impact sales of Sony’s gadget.

“I suspect a price cut on the PSVR2 will be needed to avoid a complete disaster of their new product,” Jeronimo said.

The cool consumer reception to the PSVR2 is indicative of the wider challenge for metaverse purveyors, including Meta. Hype around metaverse offerings has petered out over the past year, as tech firms have cut spending on projects that aren’t immediately profitable and support from the crypto sector has vanished as that industry reels from successive crises.

Zuckerberg has said Meta will pull back on investments as part of a “year of efficiency.” This week, Walt Disney Co. reportedly cut the division developing its metaverse strategies as part of a broader restructuring.

Entertainment

Japanese opposition lawmaker poses questions to PM Kishida with help of ChatGPT

OpenAI’s ChatGPT made its debut in Japanese parliamentary deliberations, with the premier fielding questions from an opposi-tion lawmaker that were drawn up with the help of the chatbot.

Kazuma Nakatani, of the Constitutional Democratic Party, said in a session of parliament on Wednesday that he asked ChatGPT: “What kind of questions would you ask the prime minister if you were a member of the lower house of parliament?” He then used those responses to form questions for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a discussion around a draft amendment related to COVID-19 pandemic policy.

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Among the questions drawn up by ChatGPT were: “On the bill about COVID-19 policy revision, do you think you have listened to the opinion of local government and health-care workers enough? And could you tell us how those people involved are responding to it?”

While the use of the chatbot may have been new for a parliamentary session, the discussions are highly regimented. Questions are submitted in advance, with the premier and most Japanese government ministers usually relying on reams of prepared text that they carry with them and from which they read in response.

Kishida responded to the ChatGPT-assisted questions with text prepared with the help of relevant government officials.